Mac explains street art The open kitchen at the residence at the Grand Hyatt Frank Mohren, MCEC’s director of operations, demonstrates the specially designed lecterns in the new convention centre The vast foyer of the new convention centre Leigh Harry conducts the seating display in the new convention centre Chinese lanterns provide colour and lighting at Queen Victoria Markets Ministry of Dance channeling Bob Fosse at Crown Fusion Louie and the Party Boys Viewed from Crown Towers - Crown Promenade on the left and the new Crown tower centre. MCEC top right.

Street Art

Melbourne is renowned for its laneways and while we are familiar with the cafes and bars the MCVB took the opportunity to take the AIME media pack on a tour of the graffiti (sorry Street Art).

Suzanne Hart (Suzanne Hart Events) introduced us to Mac, an artist with a workshop and studio located in a backstreet warehouse. Mac showed us how to stencil and then took us on a tour of the laneways explaining the history and evolution of what is known collectively as Street Art.  We learned about stencilling, pastups and many other different forms of the genre - and observed a few artists in action.

MCVB welcome at Grand Hyatt

Melbourne ’s Grand Hyatt has undergone a major refurb ($45 million in fact) and in what must be considered a very brave move the management opened up their newest event space for the AIME hosted buyers.  The residence is a very spectacular venue and most of the guests would not have noticed that some uncompleted areas were patched over for the function.

The residence is described thus…

Based on a private mansion concept, guests will be welcomed into the residence as if they were entering a good friend’s home. The residence combines an impressive collection of individually styled rooms including a home style, functional kitchen with commercial capability where guests can interact with the chefs preparing the food. The impressive garden courtyard with mature trees opens onto a stunning verandah over-looking Collins Street .

The residence will accommodate groups from 14 people up to 450 standing guests. This new events area will be versatile, flexible and ideal for exclusive meetings, launches, cocktail receptions, intimate weddings, black-tie functions and sophisticated celebrations. The addition of the residence will complement the hotel’s current remarkable banquet facilities and cement Grand Hyatt Melbourne’s position as Australia ’s premier M.I.C.E. hotel.

Other areas of the redevelopment include new upper and lower lobbies, a new restaurant – Collins Kitchen, and new bar RU-CO.  This is complimented by a new driveway on Russell St and a new hotel entrance on Collins St .

Next up will be refurbishment of the hotel’s 547 guest rooms, due to commence in June.

Breakfast at Crown Promenade           

Over 300 guests attended the breakfast held at the Crown Conference Centre. Guests enjoyed a performance by Patrice Tipoki from the smash hit musical “Wicked.” Master of Ceremonies, Michael Pope was also very entertaining and the MCVB Chief Executive Officer, Sandra Chipchase treated us to an insider’s snapshot of Melbourne .

Crown Hotels’ Director of Sales and Marketing, Shaun Murphy took us on a “sneak peak” tour of Crown’s third hotel, which will open in 2010 as well as announced details of a significant expansion and extension to the Crown Conference Centre which will open in December 2009.

Crown third tower construction

Then a look at the new Hilton Melbourne South Wharf which will open for business on 16th April.

One of the big features of this hotel is just how well it integrates with the new convention centre.

The new convention centre

A segue then to the new Convention Centre.  With so much hype building up around this new centre we were very interested to see just what has been achieved.

Having spent many long days in convention centres around the country both as a delegate and as a technician and event manager I can say that I am impressed.  I love the openness of the vast foyer flooded with natural light, also a feature of a couple of the smaller meeting rooms that we saw.

The ballroom is vast and plain – a designers dream. They have sourced very stylish chairs that, NOTE, will not require chair covers (yes I do hate them).

But the pièce de résistance is undoubtedly the plenary hall. Once conference and event managers get their head around the capabilities of this space you can expect to see some spectacular presentations, whether they be opening ceremonies, product launches, concerts or whatever.

The MCEC hosted lunch in the plenary hall. Quite a brave move as the venue was not yet completed.  For example the kitchens had not yet been commissioned so the meals were prepared in the old convention centre kitchens on the other side of the Yarra and trucked around to the service areas.

At one stage during the lunch the diners were invited onto the stage to witness the automated system for changing the seating configuration – it got a round of applause – but then it is not the sort of thing that will happen before an audience that often in the future.

Queen Victoria Markets

The AIME welcome party was held at Queen Victoria Markets – showing just how a working environment can be converted into an event space and back again within a 24 hour period.  Event Director Jon Smith told us that the biggest challenges were the time factor and the load rating of the roof.  Jon kept to a quite simple design for the lighting so at to keep loading available to hang speakers.  And the bump out – lots of crew.

AIME Nightclub at Fusion

The nightclub event at Crown Fusion was a typical loud, high energy nightclub event.

The feature of the night was performances by Jason Coleman’s Ministry of Dance.  A few podium dancers rotated around the room and through various costumes and a couple of routines performed on stage - with a Bob Fosse inspired piece my favorite.

The early band Absolute featured a singer with a great voice who struggled to be heard over the crowd, then after a floor show by the Ministry of Dance ‘Louie and the Party Boys’ had the crowd rocking well into the night

The Crown 3rd Tower with General Manager Harley Moraitis	Crown have a sense of humour - the invite to the nightclub party was accompanied by Hairy Lemon and eye relief
Melbourne Street Art

ASE editor Trevor Connell visited AIME as hosted media and was accommodated at Crown Towers